Mozilla forces Firefox 7 on memory diet

Firefox 7 has been released with a promise from Mozilla its browser is less of a memory hog.

The new version of Mozilla's browser will consume up to 50 per cent less of your system's memory than past editions with most users clawing back 20 and 30 per cent.

Firefox 7 apparently achieves this thanks to a project started in June called MemShrink.

The project's goal has been to improve the architecture and code in Firefox by eliminating bugs behind memory leaks and putting in place practices to detect regressions.

With Firefox gobbling up substantially reduced amounts of memory, the idea is for Mozilla's browser to become dramatically faster and less likely to crash if you have lots of web sites and tabs open or keep Firefox running for long periods of time between restarts.

Other features in Firefox 7 include the fact WebSockets are now enabled by default on mobile, for two-way communications with a remote host for HTTP, while the Canvas element for graphics has been updated for snappier performance.